1. Field of the Invention
Various aspects of present invention relate to indirect delivery of data to a destination device via a variety of heterogeneous type of data networks when the destination device is unreachable directly.
2. Description of the Related Art
A computer, video game box, laptop, phone, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and many other types of terminals may be connected to a packet switched data network via an access point. The packet switched data network may be, for example, an EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) network, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) network, CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) network, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11 network, Bluetooth, WiMax network, Internet, Intranet, satellite network, etc. The data packets typically comprise one or combination of real time and/or archived multimedia information such as text, audio, video, picture, and control signal.
The terminal may be associated with more than one access points that belong to the same packet switched data network. Alternately or in addition the terminal may be associated with more than one access points that belong to different packet switched data networks which are communicatively incompatible with each other. The different packet switched communicatively compatible and/or incompatible data networks are communicatively coupled to each other via a backbone network. The terminal receives unique network addresses of the access points from each of the access points upon association. The terminal uses the received network addresses to exchange data packets with corresponding access points. For example the terminal may be associated with a first access point that belongs to an EDGE network, a second access point that belongs to a GSM network and a third access point that belongs to an IEEE 802.11 network. The terminal receives a first network address of the first access point from the first access point upon association with the first access point. The terminal uses the first network address to send data packets to the first access point. Similarly the terminal receives a second network address and a third network address corresponding to the second access point and the third access point respectively.
The terminal may get detached from any of the associated access points at an instant of time. For example the terminal detaches from the first access point that belongs to the EDGE network at the instant of time. Detachment may typically happen if the terminal moves away from service area of the first access point and/or communication link between the first access point and the terminal does not support desired QOS for delivery of the data packets to the terminal at the instant of time. The terminal is henceforth unable to send and/or receive data packets from the first access point. Since the first access point is point of contact between the terminal and the EDGE network, the terminal is henceforth unable to communicate with any node or terminal belonging to the EDGE network.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art through comparison of such systems with various aspects of the present invention.